Diocles of Carystus on the method of dietetics 87
the tendency of searching for causes at any cost which Fredrich found
characteristic of the same ‘Compilator’.^30 Now there is in itself nothing
implausible about one person criticising another person in one respect
but praising him in another; besides, not too much consistency can be
expected from a ‘Compilator’. But Fredrich’s construction of the debate
becomes problematic when he suggests that Diocles shows a common front
with the Hippocratic author ofOn Ancient Medicine, who in his turn is
said by Fredrich to be criticising the author ofOn Regimenfor having the
temerity ‘to attribute to individual foods and drinks the properties cold,
hot, dry or wet’.^31 Within the space of three pages and in a dazzling course of
argument, Fredrich applied a complete metamorphosis to claim one, which
was first said to be the claim thatOn Regimenis opposing, but which is
later associated with whatOn Ancient Medicineand Diocles are opposing
and which is identified by Fredrich as the view held by the compiler ofOn
Regimen.
On this kind of identification it may be appropriate to quote Josef-Hans
Kuhn, who with regard to a similar question concerning the opponents ̈
ofOn Ancient Medicinemade the following remark: ‘The tendency to
make connections between the few treatises from antiquity that have been
preserved is understandable and justified. On the other hand, the sheer
number of works dealing with medical topics must have been so large that it
would be a great coincidence if the rather arbitrary selection of the tradition
had preserved precisely those treatises which refer to each other.’^32 Kuhn ̈
concludes that the best we can do is to regard the writings that have been
preserved as examples of a no longer extant but presumably much broader
spectrum of medical views, and to restrict ourselves to a reconstruction of
the view that is being criticised without immediately putting a label on it
or associating it with another treatise that has been preserved. Yet I would
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D)L>(^30) Fredrich ( 1899 ) 171 ; this point has been misunderstood by Torraca ( 1965 ) 108.
(^31) Fredrich ( 1899 ) 169 : ‘den einzelnen [Speisen und Getr ̈anken] die Eigenschaften Kalt, Warm, Trocken
oder Feucht beizulegen’.
(^32) J.-H. Kuhn ( ̈ 1956 ) 84 : ‘Die Neigung, innerhalb der wenigenuberlieferten Schriften der Antike immer ̈
wieder direkte Bezugsverh ̈altnisse herstellen zu wollen, ist verst ̈andlich und berechtigt. Andererseits
muß die Fulle der Arbeiten, die sich mit medizinischen Fragen besch ̈ ̈aftigen, so groß gewesen sein,
daß es ein großer Zufall w ̈are, wenn die mehr oder minder zuf ̈allige Auswahl unsererUberlieferung ̈
gerade die Schriften erhalten h ̈atte, welche aufeinander Bezug nehmen.’